From the Ashes
by raspbewwies
Summary: Canon, Post-war. Drabbles on Konoha's rebirth from the ashes. Multiple characters. Possible warning for spoilers from the manga. #20: "Through it all, hope will follow, in traces and faint whispers. For it is hope that remains as they journey through the infinite, hope that will resurrect. Hope that will birth them from the ashes."
1. 1: Pomp

**Prompt #1: Pomp**

When he took his seat in the chair men far greater than he had once delivered judgement or punishment, he could not see the celebration.

He could not feel the thumps of congratulations, he did not hear the swarms of people cheering infront of him. They needed something to celebrate for, some sign of birth from the ashes. He understood this.

The title weighed heavily on his head.

He had never asked for this. Just like he had never asked for Obito to turn into a monster, or Rin to impale herself on his Lightning Cutter. He never wanted to sit in the seat the Uchiha had died for or kill the gentle girl who found it in her to love him.

The pomp rings in his hollow ears. If they need some sign of birth from the ashes; he would give it to them. He would at least try to do that right.


	2. 2: Brimstone

**A/N: Standard Disclaimers apply.**

**Prompt #2: Brimstone**

Uchiha Obito tasted death on his tongue.

It tasted of ash.

He lay looking at the eye he had given to the upstart jonin who, ironically, had everything he never did: a life, a village, Rin.

And his eye, of course.

He tasted revenge and punishment, yet the silver haired man only looked wretched. He looked broken, and Obito can't help but feel vindicated that they were at the same level, the same pitch black hell.

So he closes his eyes, waiting for the blade to swing, for his death sentence delivered by a man as broken as he is.


	3. 3: Hegemony

**Prompt #3: Hegemony**

Theirs was a dance.

Madara can't deny the beauty to his movement. He never could. There was a lithe fluidity about how the Senju moved, an overwhelming sense of his power wafted off his sweat-drenched skin.

The Uchiha knew this battle of theirs, fought at the brink of destruction, was going to end much the same as the rest of them. He would kneel; he would fall at the feet of the man who always stood above him, no matter how many times he told him, between blows, that they were _brothers._

So he kneels. He kneels to this god among men; the god that had shaken and torn him, then drove a blade through his heart while the heavens rumbled overhead.

So it was, so it will be.


	4. 4: Seraphim

**Prompt #4: Seraphim**

She had watched from afar as he burned.

He burned dark flames that lazily licked the dusky sky. He covered himself in a raging fire as he watched the beast burn in his flames. Not for the first time, she thought of a fearsome angel from hell.

Because really, Uchiha Sasuke had no place in heaven. His flames beckoned from the depths of the dark to consume what was born from the dark.

That is why the wind next to him, the resilient, knuckle-headed wind, pushed him, synchronising perfectly as the heavens blew sharp gusts to wipe the dark.

That is where Haruno Sakura fit in the puzzle. Caught between the heavens and hell, she was the living.


	5. 5: Pony

**Prompt #5: Pony**

One day, Sakura dragged him pony riding.

She literally grabbed the scruff of his neck and dragged him to ride on a _pony. _He didn't argue. He still wanted to live.

She led him to Training Ground Three, where he first gave Team Seven their bell test. It was dusky and getting darker, and there it was. A pony, tied to one of the trees.

Sakura joined the two darker figures leaning close to another tree. There they were, the three successors to the Sannin, scrawny brats not long ago.

So although he has piles of paperwork to do and his head is screaming, when all three (he has missed on saying that for a long time) of his students get him to ride a pony because he was _too darned stressed_, he does.

He looks ridiculous, of course. That's alright, though. They are laughing (one is smirking), and in them he can see hope. So he rides the pony, and falls off it, and still sees hope.


	6. 6: Substance

**Prompt #6: Substance**

To Sasuke, hatred was a thick, viscous substance flowing sluggishly in his blood. It stopped and deposited in his arms, his eyes, his brain, before it could complete its rounds. He could blame it on the substance, the goddarned substance, as his hands wrapped around her neck like a vise, his eyes flashed crimson red, and his brain was high with insanity.

The substance also had an annoying way of shining out of him so everyone else kept far away from him, as if it were contagious. It might as well be. He was treated with tight looks of distrust, excepting his deadlast something-of-a-friend. Not her. She has reached her limit to how much of the substance she can stand.

She flinches when he is near and he can almost feel how his hands must have felt on her throat. He is desperate to clean out the substance. It's suffocating him, eating him up, and there's no use it serves to him anymore.

It is raining today. He waits outside the hospital, waits until she comes out with piles of files and pink hair bunched up. When he offers her his umbrella, she smiles and joins him as they walk into the night.

The substance leaks off and dies as the rain washes him clean.


	7. 7: Forest

**Prompt #7: Forest**

As the Edo Tensei was released, Hashirama Senju's last thought was that of a forest. He thought of the forest that now covered the barren space he and his friend (moremoremoresomuchmorethanafriend) spun their dreams for the future, drunk on possibility.

As Uzumaki Naruto watched his two best friends promise to love and to hold, he thought they were like trees in a forest, twining together, depending on each other.

When Uchiha Sasuke clasps hands with his deadlast something-of-a-friend, he thinks they are branches of the same tree, growing in separate directions as they reach for the skies.

The forest had been razed to the ground in the war. As Konoha plants the seeds of trees that would grow to replace them, their thoughts are of their children who sow hope in their hearts. For whom they fought and won, and will fight again.


	8. 8: Nails

**A/N: Many thanks for the follows and the reviews ^.^ **

**Prompt #8: Nails**

Ino's nails were always painted a light pink.

Nara Shikamaru thinks that it's a sweet colour, babyish and innocent. Not, of course, that he would really _admit _that. To her face, at any rate.

Still, it hadn't escaped his notice when they idly stared at the clouds on days where she didn't have to be at the shop and he was spared of his troublesome duties on the council. While she pointed out completely _ludicrous_ shapes for things that were obviously just blobs of white cotton candy, he was acutely aware of her fingers, their nails painted a light pink.

Theirs is a kiss beneath cotton candy skies in colours of light pink and orange. Theirs was the first wedding after the war, an event almost half the populace is invited to and was inevitably a trainwreck. Naruto was completely drunk on sake as his "initiation to manhood", while Chouji was downing all the food within visible range in the middle of the ceremony. Chomp chomp is so _bothersome_.

As she twines her hand in his, he notices her nails are still pink. He decides _hell with it_, and kisses them.


	9. 9: Thunder

**A/N: Flufffff fluff fluff fluff :3**

**Prompt #9: Thunder**

Uzumaki Mae is a baby born in the middle of a storm.

In the waiting room, her father is pacing anxiously, strangely quiet and absolutely petrified. His shy, gentle wife was in that _room, _in the middle of a _storm _and he's in the _waiting room._ _It makes no sense, dattebayo._

"Tch. Stop panicking." That would be her father's best friend, the raven haired man she would come to call Unca Sauce-kay. "Sakura is with her. She won't die."

"Hinata is _FRAGILE."_ Her father is almost screeching.

"Women are all built the same way."

"Teme, you're cold and DEAD inside. I don't listen to you, dattebayo."

Silence ensues, punctuated by blasts of thunder when it dragged on for too long. The silence is full of fear.

Her father's pink haired friend, who Mae will grow up to call Auntie Saku, comes into the waiting room. She's beaming.

"It's a girl."


	10. 10: Cannula

**Prompt #10: Cannula**

The IV fluid drips into the cannula in time with the lazy hands of the clock.

Sakura can't help but think of the irony of it all. She was lying on a bed in the hospital she spent half of her life in. She chose to specialise in obscetrics and gynaecology and this was her second miscarriage.

This time, the baby had been formed. She can't wipe the horror and (yes, she will admit it) revulsion that struck her as she saw that bloody little alien, struggling for breath.

She was tired of being a disappointment. She had been a disappointment of a kunoichi for most of her life, now she's a disappointment as a wife. She would _not_ cry, even if she could.

She just turns sharply, away from the clock reminding her of her canula, of the IV and why she was here for the second time.

She turns just in time to see Sasuke slumped by the bed, soundly asleep, clutching her hand.

The disappointment rises in her throat and threatens to crush her.

She would cry, if she could.


	11. 11: Hollow

**A/N: Thanks a bunch for the reviews **** You're welcome to add any prompts you would like me to use.**

**Prompt #11: Hollow**

Tenten is hollow.

It's hard for her to think that she could have foreseen this. She was the complete opposite of hollow for most of her fifteen years. Never would she have dreamt that the Hyuuga could have taken most of her along with all of him when he jumped (stupidlygallantlynobly) in the middle.

As she flings weapon by weapon onto targets without fail, she can't help but think that in this optimism, she's just another unrecorded casualty of war. She is one of the living reminders of the sacrifice the peace of Konoha needed.

She hates them for it. Sometimes.


	12. 12: Gash

**Prompt #12: Gash**

Sakura runs a finger over the long gash that stretches over her taut skin.

The morning is slow to rise and the clammy feel of cold clings to their bedroom. Her husband sleeps next to her, sound and dreamless. She looks over to the cot and her gash stings.

Little Ren had been a difficult pregnancy and an even harder delivery. They had been on tenterhooks for nine months and she had refused to even hope he would make it.

He was born a blue baby. She knew she had been wrong to hope when her teacher's face loomed grimly.

When she held him to her heart, he gave a small start. He lived, despite her logic and her despair telling her that the _universe had never really been fair, why should it now?_

He came back to her, just like his father did.


	13. 13: Smile

**A/N: I've taken a small hiatus from updating ^.^ Lotsa stuff have been happening and I've been watching Soul Eater. Expect some Stein/Marie soon :3**

**Again, any prompts are welcome. Thanks for staying along **

**Prompt #13: Smile**

Tsunade doesn't smile often.

She is tired most of the time, sitting in bed and watching as the village is rebuilt brick by brick upon layers of love and heart.

This doesn't make her smile. Her mind is groggy and her body taxed. She cannot feel the hope that radiates from Konoha like shy children just emerging from behind their parents.

That is, until little Mae and little Ren are placed together next to her and she sees them reach for each other, almost blindly. It makes her crack something like a smile.

She's been a secret sucker for love, in all its shapes and forms.


	14. 14: Paint

**A/N: Prompts submitted by it makes sense in context. Feel free to submit any pairings you would like to see (after all, hope can take any form it wants). Please do not have it clash with already established shipping (Naruto/ Hinata and Sasuke/Sakura). Thanks :D**

**Prompt #14: Paint**

"What d'you think? Cream or pale pink?"

"We are not painting this mansion _pale pink_."

"Cream, then?"

"Are you delusional? NO. Uchiha do not paint their walls CREAM."

"Uchiha Sasuke, your son has made a drawing board of your walls. It's really only a matter of whether you want it some nice colour that makes people want to stay here or we let him draw more of his art around the walls."

"He's _your_ son too."

"You are so darn _stubborn,_ it's a miracle we're even together."

...

"You do know there's a child in the house,yeah?"

"Hn."

"OUR child?"

"I'm taking you there, don't complain."

"But he's all ALONE. And he may SEE us."

"You need your candy fix. You're getting irritable."

"And teddies too?"

"Hn."


	15. 15: Shoe

**Prompt #15: Shoe**

Her daughter has outgrown her shoes.

Kurenai Yuhi can't help but feel a pang of resentment when they go to pick another pair of sandals. She is slipping away from her, just like her father did. Slowly, with a lot less blood, she prayed, but she would leave.

Leave and keep her, all alone.

On the way back, her daughter turns around to look at happy families with their fathers. Eating ice cream, having piggy back rides, being complete. She turns to Kurenai, her three year old eyes full of questions.

How can she explain that her father paid a price for her life, for everyone else's, for them to eat ice cream and have piggy back rides?

How can she possibly explain without making her daughter hate, as she secretly does in some dark corner of her heart?

She does not know. She does not want to know. So she buys her an ice cream and tries to give a piggy back ride, but settles for carrying her. Some things she just can't do.


	16. 16: Novel

**Prompt #16: Novel**

Occasionally, he thinks he could try writing.

He wouldn't be as good as Jiraiya, and he definitely will not spout something like _The Challenges of being the Rokudaime_ because not only was it stuck up, he didn't want to immortalise the torture.

Instead, the silver haired, masked young man thinks of a boy with goggles and a girl with a beautiful smile. He thinks of a story where they meet a lonely little boy and they travel around the world. Maybe the boy with the goggles marries the girl with the smile and the lonely little boy is their best man, and the godfather to their child.

He decides he can't bear to write it, because reality has never cut him slack. He can bear to watch it in his own three and those to come.

Simply because he had no happy endings does not mean he will not hope for theirs.


	17. 17: Remembrance

**A/N: This concludes it makes sense in context's prompts. I hope you like them and as always, thanks for reading ^.^ Keep the prompts coming, if you'd like to see any of them.**

**Prompt #17: Remembrance**

Uzumaki Naruto had collected quite a few memories being a father.

There was that time Mae had blown a spit bubble at him. Another where she said a convoluted form of Tou-san that ended up sounding like oooosa.

There was also the one where she threw up all over him.

She was an adorable child, his Mae, with bright blue eyes and dark hair. She was impossibly loud and even sort of annoying.

Everytime she pulls at his hair or blows spit bubbles at him, he remembers and brands them. For she is what he fought for and will fight time and time again.

So he remembers, he brands.


	18. 18: Small Things

**A/N: Three prompts left to go and this is concluded. I cut it down from 50 because 50 is waaaay too long O_O**

**Prompt #18: Small Things**

Uchiha Sasuke has learnt that it is the small things that matter.

He wakes up to the warmth of his wife in bed (or on occasion his son, when the thunderstorms make him run to his parents). He eats breakfast (sometimes too salty, but he won't say so) and he heads out to the ANBU headquarters.

On days he did not have to leave, he would come back to a house that's either empty in which case he goes to the hospital. As his son grows up, he watches Ren become a bright, happy child who _maybesortof_ likes Mae and is more suited to medicine like his mother than his father.

Sasuke doesn't mind.

It is the small things that matter, the small things that remind him of the hope that he clings to.


	19. 19: Memory Keeper

**Prompt #19: Memory Keeper**

When Hashirama Senju strikes the final blow, the memories flash in his head as the last of his consciousness fades.

The stepping stones. The intoxicating possibility. The irrevocable blows. The continual pulling and tugging.

The Uchiha lays motionless. He is starting to crumble. His eyes are closed and Hashirama knows that they are filled with hate.

Hate or love, it makes no difference to them. For they will meet, in life, in death and beyond, adding memories in an infinite journey.

He starts to crumble.

He fades.


	20. 20: Samsara

**A/N: This finally concludes the drabble series; hopefully I can actually move on to write actual fiction later on. Sorry I couldn't make space for any shippings you may have wanted, twenty is unfortunately the farthest I can go in drabbling or I bore myself out. As always, thanks for hanging around and following this through.**

**Much love ^.^**

**Prompt #20: Samsara**

Once, a raven haired, cold Uchiha clashed with a yellow haired, spirited Uzumaki.

Before them, a raven haired Uchiha fought with a long haired, spirited Senju.

After them, a silver haired man knelt to land the final blow to the man who shaped his life.

Although they are now seemingly past them and children play underneath safe skies, history simply repeats itself.

They will meet, time and time again, through this life and the next.

Through it all, hope will follow, in traces and faint whispers. For it is hope that remains as they journey through the infinite, hope that will resurrect.

Hope that will birth them from the ashes.


End file.
